Couple slain after party for grandson

It was Michael Boysen’s grandparents who picked him up from prison when he was released Friday.

The elderly couple had prepared a bedroom for him in their Renton-area home. They spent most of that day driving their 26-year-old grandson around town, taking him to meet his probation officer and getting him an identification card from the Department of Licensing, according to King County Sheriff John Urquhart.

That night, they held a welcome-home party for him. They were “getting him set up to go back into society,” after he had served time for a 2012 conviction for attempted residential burglary, the sheriff said.

Boysen paid them back, Urquhart said Monday, by killing them and stealing their car.

A multistate manhunt is under way for Boysen, who is named in a warrant and who Urquhart’s investigators believe is seeking weapons and poses a significant threat to law enforcement and the community at large.

Deputies are searching for the dead couple’s vehicle, which Boysen is believed to have stolen. Urquhart said his office is working with gun dealers in hopes of keeping him from getting weapons.

Detectives learned that Boysen was conducting online searches of gun shows across the Pacific Northwest and Nevada just before or after his grandparents were slain, Urquhart said.

The bodies of Boysen’s grandparents, 82 and 80, were discovered in their home by Boysen’s mother Saturday evening, according to the sheriff’s office. Boysen is believed to have killed them sometime after the party, Urquhart said.

The King County Medical Examiner’s Office has not released their identities or the cause of death, but KING 5 reported their names as Robert and Norma Taylor.

Urquhart said they did not die by gunshot.

The sheriff said investigators learned after the slayings that Boysen — who also goes by Chad or Chadd — had discussed a plan to obtain a gun and kill family members and authority figures, potentially including law-enforcement officers and corrections officers.

Urquhart would not elaborate on how investigators learned about the threats Boysen is reported to have made, but said it was not until after the slayings that citizen sources came forward with information.

The “extreme risk” Boysen poses to the public cannot be overstated, he said.

“We need to catch this guy. We need the help of the public ’cause we have no idea where he is,” Urquhart said.

Boysen had served nine months of a 16-month sentence at the Monroe Correctional Complex after the 2012 conviction for attempted residential burglary.

Chad Lewis, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections (DOC), said Boysen was not a problem inmate and that he had earned a minimum custody level through his compliance.

All the same, DOC considered him a high risk to reoffend nonviolently.

“We take threats very, very seriously,” Lewis said. “There was no indication that he had plans to do anything like this.”

Boysen had previously served five years at the Clallam Bay Corrections Center after he pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree robbery, two counts of first-degree robbery and possession of stolen property.

Court documents indicate he was arrested in 2006 after his mother called police after she found prescription bottles and a robbery demand note in his room. Boysen’s sister told her mother that Boysen had confided that he and friend had robbed a pharmacy, according to the court papers.

After his arrest, Boysen told police he was addicted to OxyContin, a narcotic painkiller, court documents show.